Bihar man carves out 3-km-long canal over 30 years to bring water to his village

Longi Manjhi - the Bhuiyan community elder- has single-handedly carved out a 3-km long canal to take rainwater coming down from nearby hills to fields of his village, Kothilawa village of Bihar’s Gaya.

Remember Dashrath Manjhi from Bihar, who spent 22 years carving a path through a hill after losing his wife in an accident? In a similar feat of grit, a man from Gaya has dug a canal single-handedly to channel water from the hills to his village for irrigation.

Working for the past 30 years, Longi Manjhi - the Bhuiyan community elder- has single-handedly carved out a 3-km long canal to take rainwater coming down from nearby hills to fields of his village, Kothilawa village of Bihar’s Gaya ji.

The area, once a Naxal stronghold where even government officials hesitated to enter, has witnessed a remarkable transformation. Nearly three decades ago, Manjhi sparked an unimaginable change by making water accessible to the villages surrounding his native Kothilwa.

For Longi Manjhi, it was the “palayan” (migration) of his friends that pushed him to take on a Herculean mission — all alone.

He was called “mad,” denied even food by his own family, and mocked for years for what many saw as a pointless mission — wandering through Naxal-dominated forests, carving through steep terrain, breaking rocks, and redirecting the stream flowing from the Khajuria hills.

Over the past three decades, Manjhi has constructed an interconnected network of canals, facilitating the creation of small dams and ensuring year-round water supply for surrounding villages.

And the transformation has been dramatic.

“Earlier, farmers here could cultivate only lentils. Beyond that, their choices were limited to cutting wood from the forests or migrating for work,” said Rinku Kumar, a teacher who has been working in the region for nearly 20 years, speaking to India Today.

“Even if you consider Longi Manjhi’s contribution as mere MGNREGA labour, his pending wages for 30 years would amount to ₹27 lakh. He has received no recognition from the government — financial support is out of the question at his age,” Kumar added. He stresses that Longi’s life’s work embodies the vision of conserving and nurturing “Jal, Jeevan and Hariyali” — water, life and greenery.

The most prominent landmark in the foothills today is the “Longi Dam” — a government-funded structure that stands as testimony to the revolution envisioned and single-handedly executed by a member of the Mahadalit community.

The true value of his work becomes clear only when one begins to calculate the economic cost of what he has achieved.

Now, Longi Manjhi is on the final mission of his journey as the region’s “Canal Man”: building the largest dam of his life, along with canal routes that would carry water to five hamlets on either side.